Current avionics architectures generally comprise an avionics part that includes a flight management system that offers the flight crew, e.g., pilots, the option to define a flight path before a flight and to maintain or change the flight path during the flight.
An avionics part (or avionics world) relates to on-board elements (computer, systems, etc.), which are secured so as to obey given constraints of integrity and availability.
An open world part relates to on-board equipment (laptop, tablet, etc.) in the cockpit of the aircraft and hosting applications, which are not sufficiently secure to be integrated as the avionics part (or avionics world) in the aircraft.
A strict segregation exists between the avionic part (avionics world) and the open world. Because of the segregation, integration of functions performed in the cockpit by the open world parts with the avionics part is very limited, which greatly reduces their utility. The limited integration causes the crew to juggle between the avionics part and the open world part while in the cockpit. The juggling includes manually transferring information between the avionics part and the open world part, which creates extra work for the crew and a risk of a data error occurring during the transfer.
Mainly for reasons of cost and simplicity of development, many initiatives are emerging for implementing open world side functionalities aimed at simplifying the task of the crew regarding the management of the aircraft's mission.